Making a mess of my plot & trying to not compare myself | NaNoWriMo Week 2 🖋️ writing vlog

[@timewithnicole]

Hello! I'm leaving a little note here to say that now NaNoWriMo is over, I'm going to be spending a little extra time on video editing these upcoming weeks. So hopefully the rest of my NaNo vlogs will be coming out sooner rather than later. I hope you all had a wonderful NaNoWriMo this year if you participated!! 💖✨

[@thecat_iswatching]

I know I've been victim to the comparison game too, but please keep going! I do think noticing there is room to grow is a good thing, and it actually shows your skills have upgraded! But it's tough when you're on that slope, I definitely get you. I've always liked the idea that the first draft is you telling yourself the story. The second draft is writing the story for others to read. 📖✏

[@timewithnicole]

Thank you for your lovely comment, I won't be giving up! Sorry for my late response. I read your comment weeks ago and have taken your words to heart. I love the idea of thinking of your first draft that way. I will be keeping it in mind!

[@lynndjung]

Ahh i love your editing and vibe!! Subscribed 🫶

[@timewithnicole]

Thank you!! 🥰

[@StudioLindsay]

Congrats on hitting 25K and then some on Week Two! 🎉🎉🎉 I can relate to comparing my own writing to books I enjoy, and I actually had a similar thought when I read Ali Hazelwood’s books (“Why can’t I write scenes this funny?”). But your conclusion is so right- our writing style is our own, we all have different writing strengths, and it’s meant to be that way. Also, I really like your writing style! Your Peachtober posts put me in such a cozy mood and I always looked forward to reading them. I’d really like to read this story too someday! It sounds like it has a lot of cozy vibes as well, and your mood board fits how I imagined the book when you described it to me. Looking forward to more NaNo vlogs! 😊

[@timewithnicole]

Thank you!! 🎉🎉🎉 I am glad I'm not alone in my thoughts about comparison. And you are so right about us each having our own writing styles. Thank you so much for your kind words about my Peachtober posts, it means so much to me ❤

[@TheDarqProject]

The best way to improve is to only compare yourself to yourself. If you want to track things and blast past YOUR previous performance: awesome! But comparing yourself to others (especially with different life/financial/work/family situations) is only going to steal your joy for what you have accomplished. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your NaNo journey!

[@timewithnicole]

Thank you! You are so right about this, I need to keep it in mind!

[@JadieAlissia]

I think that your writing does not need to be perfect or to everyone's tastes to share! Congrats on your progress, I added you as a buddy at the start of november so I was rooting for you to do well! Your book sounds cute and quite cozy I think :) I am curious to see what you end up doing with it! My november went well I think, I managed to hit 50K a little early and luckily my book is done at 51K words (for which I am glad because I was getting a bit sick of writing so much every day). I think the quality started out quite well but then I felt rushed so the end is quite rough lol. I need to do *a lot* of editing for the second half.

[@timewithnicole]

Thank you for adding me on the website! It was cool to see everyone's progress as time went on, and nice to know you were a part of that list! I am so glad to hear that you NaNoWriMo was a success and that you won, that's awesome! I know what you mean about getting sick of the daily writing and the drop in quality lol that's what editing is for 😊

[@JadieAlissia]

@@timewithnicole Seeing everyone else participate at the same time really made it easier to motivate myself! Good luck with editing! :)

[@romeoandthechickenfeather]

I'm so happy you showed us what the courgette lasagne thingy looked like after it came out of the oven! I would've been endlessly curious. I'm still writing. My original goal of 50k shifted to 60k and I think I'll probably end up closer to 70k in total (though now I've switched to tracking pages rather than words because I can no longer be bothered to count each one). I can't read when I'm writing. Or, I can't read anything that's even remotely similar to what I'm writing, because I my narrative voice gets "contaminated" lol And most of the time I find I don't want to read. Something that I found helpful was asking what you need before you start a story (I, personally, need a theme, from which I derive the conflict). There's also Edgar Allan Poe's idea of "unity of effect" - in which everything should contribute to theme, essentially. So you should be able to turn to any page and get an idea about the story. Both were helpful for me when plotting/writing as they centre what I'm trying to achieve in any given scene.

[@timewithnicole]

I'm glad I could satisfy your curiosity! 😊 I'm curious to know how many words you ended up with if you'd like to share, it sounds like you had a very successful NaNo! Thank you for sharing Edgar Allan Poe's idea of "unity of effect" I had not heard of it before. I am responding to your comment very late here, but after reading your comment weeks ago, I've been keeping it in mind. Thank you for sharing!!

[@romeoandthechickenfeather]

@@timewithnicole I wasn't aiming for the 50k - I got 30k and took a break for the last week, but hadn't reached my midpoint. Now I'm almost at the end of act two and things are really rolling on. Yeah, it's a really neat little idea - I'm hoping keeping it in mind, will give me a consistent tone and theme throughout